There is common perception that Hindus are cowards and Muslims are brave.
Even Mahamta Gandhi went on to write: "Hindu is a coward and a Muslim a bully by
nature."

This perception mostly results from the fact that a handful of Muslims were
able to defeat the Hindus and rule over them for centuries.

If one were to analyze the underlying causes that led to the defeat of the
Hindus, there is no evidence to suggest that the Hindu is coward -- Hindus just
have different ideology -- a different set of priorities and ideas about nature
of things.

Hindu defeats were more intellectual and cultural. Muslims brought a new
ideology and a new kind of warfare to India -- one that at first the Hindus did
not understand. And today when they fully understand it, they are not willing to
adopt it.

The Hindu mind regarding "religious" warfare was first expressed by none else
than Alberuni, a scholar in Greek, Farsi and Arabic and an astronomer in his own
right, who came to India with Mahmud Ghaznavi, stayed in India, learnt Sanskrit,
read extensively all Hindu literature, wrote 20 books including translations on
India. In his still available book Indica, he went on to observe:

"On the whole, there is very little disputing about theological topics among
themselves; at the utmost they fight with words, but they will never stake their
soul or body or their property on religious controversy."

Hindus believed in open discussion of theological topics but did not kill
each other for their opinions and they could not understand why would one kill
others for differing on matter of theology or imposing their own ideas on
others.

Almost thousand years later, talking of the betrayal of king Dahir of Debal,
V S Naipaul went on to explain the Hindus' reaction to Muslim invasions in the
following words:

"It is the first of the betrayals that will assist the Arab conquest. But
they are not betrayals, really. They are no more than the actions of people who
understand only that power is power, and believe they are changing rulers; they
cannot conceive that a new way is about to come."

Hindu kings, before Islam, fought incessantly but it made no difference to
general public -- they were not asked to change their religion, their women were
not raped, their temples and cities were not plundered and desecrated. The war
did not touch their personal lives. All they got was another king.

A new way did dawn upon India after the conquest of Muhammad bin Kasim but
the cultural moorings of Hindu were so strong that they refused to learn the new
ways of Islam. That would have meant giving up Hinduism. While civilizations of
Arabia, Egypt, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Iran and others crumbled before the
Islamic onslaught, Hindus withstood it for centuries. Had the Hindus been
cowards, India today would have been a purely Islamic state. They refused to be
annihilated and were not desirous of annihilating even the aggressor. Religious
warfare, as Alberuni observed, has no place in their ideology.

It is not Hindus lack of understanding of these new ways even after almost
1300 years and even when Hindus were massacred in Pakistan, they failed to
retaliate in India. Even today after all the massacres of Hindus in Kashmir, the
Hindus don't want to fight in the name of religion. Secularism in India is not
an empty slogan or mere cosmetic -- it is the very basis of Hindu beliefs and
that is why a common Hindu is still ashamed of Babri masjid demolition while a
Muslim -- of Hindu ancestry -- has no qualms or shame of the destruction of tens
of thousands of Hindu temples by Muslim invaders. The difference in behavior is
nothing but the ideology that one follows -- both have the same genetic pool in
their blood stream.

It is not without reason that despite what has been visited upon the Hindus
by the Muslims, Hindu India is still a secular country while there is not a
single Muslim country that subscribes to the ideal of secularism. M J Akbar in
his book The Siege within India admits that India is secular because it is a
Hindu majority country.

As far as Hindu bravery is concerned -- it is well documented in the annals
of Muslim victors themselves -- I need not go into details of that. It is the
Hindu psyche that refuses to act contrary to their long held beliefs that
killing in the name of religion is not the right thing to do.

The success of the Muslim invaders came not from their being a martial or
superior race or being physically stronger -- it were the same Arabs who had not
done any "brave" acts other than trading in entire history before Islam -- it
was only after they took on the ideology of Islam that preached them to be cruel
to all infidels and spread the "TRUE FAITH" that they went on the rampage. The
Buddhist Afghans had lived with their Buddhist/Hindu neighbors for a millennium
-- it was only after they adopted the creed of Islam that they went on the
rampage on those very people with whom they shared history and culture.

A study of the lives and teachings of Muhammad and Buddha, Mahavir and even
Gandhi today will explain why the Muslims and the Hindus behave the way they do.
Physically and genetically an Indian/Pakistani Muslim is no different from his
Hindu compatriot -- it is the ideology that one follows that makes the
difference. It is the ideology that makes them act so differently from each
other.

The Vedic "Ekam satya, viprah bahuda vadanti" -- there is one truth but
people call it by different names -- is deeply engraved on and continues to
control the Hindu mind and actions while the Koranic injunctions "Islam is the
only true faith" and "Those who do not believe in Our revelations shall be
inheritors of Hell" continue to guide the minds and lives of Muslims.